Playing on a Level Field

 

Unlike their usual work attire
these men wore uniforms
that were not regulation issue.
There was no insignia of rank
yet each man knew
their position in the squad.

They shared a common esprit du corps 
as teammates in the great game.

Their focus was always on victory, of course,
but they understood that even in defeat
there was honor and glory, too.

These men were soldiers first
and footballers second,
held captive behind enemy lines.
But they were two teams from rival leagues

that sadly never got to play a match with each other.

The game was a football match, known as match de football in French or a Fußballspiel in German. In this photo postcard two teams are at play on a very sandy ground next to a tall grassy berm. A few bystanders watch along a wire fence that surrounds the playing field. The men are dressed in knee length pants and long sleeve shirts. I believe one team distinguishes itself by wearing white bandanas as a headdress.  

They are all French soldiers of the First World War held captive at a prisoner of war camp in Königsbrück, a small town in Saxony in eastern Germany. I have a large collection of photo postcards from this camp and have written several stories about this remarkable place. My most recent story was in December 2024, The Königsbrück POW Camp, Music in Captivity.  

The Königsbrück POW camp was one of the first camps for captured enemy soldiers set up by the Imperial German military command in August 1914. The camp was situated on the grounds of a large German army base used for infantry and artillery training. Within months the POW camp was filled with thousands of French, Belgian, and Russian soldiers. Later in the war captured Italian and Serb soldiers were added to its prison population. At its height in 1918 there were around 15,000 men housed in barracks that were largely built and maintained by the prisoners.

For reasons I have yet to discover, the commandant permitted photographers to record the soldiers' daily lives at the Königsbrück camp. Thousands of photos were produced and most were used by the imprisoned soldiers for correspondence to their homeland. In my earlier stories I've already covered the music, theater, and some of the art that the prisoners participated in, but they had other recreations too and football was one popular activity. 

The photographs from Königsbrück were printed on postcard stock that had a distinctive imprint on the  back for the photographer, Carl Schmidt, located am Bahnhopf ~ at the train station. This card was sent via the Kriegsgefangenensendung, the prisoner of war postal service, to Mademoiselle Fernande Montels of Decazeville, a commune in the Aveyron department in the Occitanie region in southern France, about 100 miles northeast of Toulouse. My understanding is that most of the mail received and sent from German POW camps in WW1 was conveyed across borders via the neutral Swiss Postal Service.

The writer to Mlle. Montels was Alfred Cerene, a French soldier in the 156e infantry regiment. Alfred's postcard has an official prisoner of war mark stamped with a date 28 January 1918. He was now approaching his 4th year in captivity. 

According to records kept at the International Red Cross Archives,  Alfred was captured on 20 August 1914 in a battle at Morchingen or Morhange as it is now known. This commune is in the Lorraine region of northeast France. In 1914 it had a German name because it was part of the French territory that Germany acquired after defeating the French army in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. 

Alfred's unit was part of the French 2nd Army which was deployed against the German 6th and 7th Armies during the Battle of Lorraine (14 August – 7 September 1914), one of first major battle lines on the Western Front. The German forces sustained over 66,500 casualties, including 21,800 dead. The French army reported over 46,000 casualties with many more soldiers captured. This initial conflict was very mobile and volatile. It set up conditions for the long trench warfare that began in late 1914. 

My second image at the top was clipped from this postcard of 29 men arranged in a typical athletic formation. Most wear a kind of football outfit with a few in army uniform. A soccer ball takes center place. They number more than just one team, almost enough for a kind of small league. Behind the group is substantial building with glass windows that looks too respectable to be prisoner barracks. I think it may be a building for the German camp commandant and staff, but the few military jackets and one hat are definitely from the French army. 

This postcard also came from the Königsbrück POW camp as shown on the back. There is no postmark but the front has a note and date:

A moy boy ami Charles Desmone...(?)  en souvenir in de notre captivites. 

To my friend Charles Desmone...(?)  in memory of our captivity.

16 – 8 – 17

Unfortunately the soldier's signature is too spikey to decipher
and only Charles knows who it is. 

A second photo of the football match at Königsbrück gets us closer to a goal. It's a rare action shot of men in motion, unlike most of the photos in my collection which are generally static poses for the camera. The goal is just two thin stakes with no net, only a piece of string defines the top.  

This card was also sent by Alfred Cerene to Mlle Fernande Montels of Decazeville. Judging by his calligraphy flourish it looks like he acquired a quality fountainpen. Maybe a gift from Fernande? There is no stamped date so we can only presume that it was sent in the winter of 1918. 

I have over a dozen postcards from Alfred all addressed to Fernande, but I have no way of knowing her relationship with him. The messages have a faint essence of love and hope that still lingers in the paper and handwriting. I like to assume they were sweethearts, but I do not know if they ever married. But since she was the recipient of these cards, I am indebted to her for preserving them. 

The image that starts my story is clipped from a postcard also from a WW1 prisoner of war camp. But this one is more rare, as it is a picture of German soldiers held at French prisoner of war camp. In my collecting experience postcards sent by captured German soldiers are very uncommon compared to those of French POWs. In this photo eleven men with their football, rank and regiment unknown, pose outdoors  on well trampled ground. In the distance behind is a hazy outline of a city. Closer is a barbed wire fence. It's a mix of men in their 20s and 30s, all wearing athletic shorts and jerseys that have no insignia. Since a football team required 11 players, I think this is a picture of a champion team. 

There is no caption or message on the front but the back has the standard French title Carte Postale with a note that looks contemporary with the photo.

Prisoners of War
88 Company
Rouen, Frankreich
2 F...... (Fußballer....?)
m....    1919

Rouen is a port city on the river Seine, about 75 miles northwest of Paris. During the war the British Army set up multiple convalescent depots in Rouen to deal with the thousands of casualties brought in from the front lines. After the war ended, some of these depots were used to house captured German soldiers until they could be repatriated. I believe these soldiers were part of that post-war process. We can't know if they were enlisted men or officers but they certainly shared a common bond as proud footballers.

The photos of the German and French prisoners' football teams are an unusual glimpse into a less brutal, even peaceful, aspect of this terrible Great War. Of course, these pictures bring up questions that may never be answered. Did the POWs ever play against a team of the camp guards? Were there any professional players in the teams? Did anyone save the football?  

According to the Wikipedia entry on Prisoners of War in World War One, during the course of over 4 years of warfare, between 6.6—9 million soldiers from all the belligerent nations were captured and held in prisoner-of-war camps. After the armistice ended the war on 11 November 1918, soldiers held prisoner by the Central Powers of Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire were released very quickly. However those held by the Allied Powers of France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, and the United States were retained for a year or more. Most were not granted freedom to return to their homelands until late 1920. For those held in Russia, where the government had fallen to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the delay was longer to 1924. For some soldiers like Alfred Cerene these photos served as a memento of a very different experience of the war. A bond of brotherhood made from a shared love of football.

I'll finish with a short film of a football match
that the men in my photos would remember
and may even have attended.
It's was the Football final
of the 1912 Summer Olympics
held in Stockhom, Sweden.
The team from Great Britain beat Denmark,  4 — 2.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where everyone is a good sport
and plays by the rules.